The Sixth Circuit ruled last week in Sierra Club v. EPA that the Sierra Club had standing to challenge EPA's redesignation of the Ohio and Indiana portions of the Cincinnati area from "nonattainment" to "attainment" of the area's national air quality standards for particulate matter. The court went on to rule that the EPA's redesignation violated the Clean Air Act.

The ruling is notable, because it's the first time the Sixth Circuit had a chance to address a petitioner's burden of production on standing in a direct appeal of a final agency action. The court said that the petitioner bears a burden of production similar to that required at summary judgment (and not like the lower standard required on a motion to dismiss), that is: "the petitioner has to present specific facts supporting standing through citations to the administrative record or 'affidavits or other evidence' attached to its opening brief, unless standing is self-evident." This standard aligns the Sixth Circuit with the Seventh, Eighth, Tenth, and D.C. Circuits.

Here, the Sierra Club attached to its brief a declaration by Sierra Club members who claimed that the redesignation would cause aesthetic, recreational, and physical injuries. As to causation and redressability, the court noted "that many courts have apparently found it so obvious that redesignation would lead to higher emissions that they did not even need to discuss the standing of environmental litigants." Still, the court looked to "reasonable inferences" about redesignation's impact and concluded that "[w]e find it reasonable to infer actual and imminent aesthetic and physical injuries to an identified member of the Club from redesignation of the Cincinnati area."

After concluded that the Sierra Club had standing, the court went on to rule against the EPA on the merits--that the redesignation violated the Clean Air Act.

The Ninth Circuit ruled today in Munns v. Kerry that families of a government contractor taken hostage in Iraq lacked standing to challenge the alleged government policy prohibiting families from offering a reward or negotiating with terrorist kidnappers. The ruling dismisses the case.

The case was brought by former employees of a private firm (and their families) that contracted with the government for security services in Iraq. Former employees of the company claim, through their next of kin, that they were issued substandard military equipment and were ill-prepared for a mission (because of the negligence of their employer, sanctioned by the State Department), that as a result they were taken hostage and held for over a year, and that government policy prohibited the families from negotiating with the kidnappers. Kidnappers brutally executed the employees in 2008.

One plaintiff, Bjorlin, not taken hostage, alleges that he wishes to return to Iraq but wants to be sure that government policies will not prevent his employer from properly equipping him for security missions.

The families of the kidnapped and executed employees argued that an alleged government policy prohibiting them from seeking information on the kidnapped employees, and offering a reward, violated the First Amendment; they sought declaratory and injunctive relief against such a policy. They also argued that the government withheld money that belongs to them as survivors of their deceased contractor relatives, in violation of the Due Process and Takings Clauses; they sought monetary damages.

The Ninth Circuit ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing for their claims for declaratory and injunctive relief. As to the families of executed employees, the court said that they didn't allege how any government policies would affect them in the future (even if they alleged that those policies affected them in the past). As to Bjorlin, the court said that the chain of events required before he would be affected by any policies was simply too attenuated.

Because the court affirmed the dismissal based on lack of standing, it didn't address the political question doctrine as an alternative basis for dismissal.

The court also rejected the plaintiffs' claims for monetary damages based on sovereign immunity.

The ACLU filed suit this week on behalf of several media and human rights organizations challenging the NSA's "upstream surveillance" program. The plaintiffs argue that the program violates the First and Fourth Amendments, and that NSA has implemented upstream surveillance in violation of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. (H/t reader Darren Elliot.)

Through upstream surveillance, a program disclosed by Edward Snowden after the Court handed down Clapper v. Amnesty International (more on that below), the NSA intercepts, collects, and searches all of Americans' international communications (e-mails, web-browsing, search engine queries, and the like). The NSA intercepts communications through devices directly on the internet backbone (with the help of providers like Verizon and AT&T), and it searches that material using keywords associated with NSA targets--that is, anyone outside the United States believed likely to communicate "foreign intelligence information."

The Supreme Court dismissed the last major suit of this type. The Court said that the plaintiffs in Clapper v. Amnesty International lacked standing to challenge NSA surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act (50 USC Sec. 1881a), because they didn't allege that they'd actually be targets of surveillance (only that they'd likely be targets).

This suit addresses the standing problem by alleging that upstream surveillance has already targeted them--because upstream surveillance is up and running and collects, in a drag-net kind of way, the kinds of communications that they engage in. And by including Wikimedia (with all its international internet connections), the ACLU ensures that at least one plaintiff has certainly been a target of this program.

The D.C. Circuit ruled this week that airlines have standing to challenge a TSA fee charged to passengers, because the fee, built into the price of an airline ticket, increases the net price for tickets and thus reduces demand. But the court went on to rule against the airlines on the merits.

The airlines in Airlines for America v. TSA challenged a TSA rule implementing a statutory fee designed to cover the cost of screening passengers. Airlines collect the fee as part of the ticket price and pass the proceeds along to TSA. The airlines challenged the rule as it applies to passengers whose travel begins abroad but includes a connecting flight within the United States.

TSA argued that the airlines lacked standing. But the court disagreed. The court said that the airlines were harmed by the fee (even if minimally), because it jacked up the ticket price and thus reduced demand:

We recognized . . . the basic proposition that "increasing the price of an activity . . . will decrease the quantity of that activity demanded in the market." . . . TSA has given no reason to suspect that any . . . exception is applicable here. Thus, the security fees injure the airlines by increasing the net price for airline tickets and reducing demand for those tickets. . . .

While the impact on demand is likely to be modest, the direction of change in demand is clear (downward). . . . [T]he court's duty to refrain from merits rulings until assured of jurisdiction . . . does not mandate an econometric study of the exact quantity of change. And, as the injury is inferable from generally applicable economic principles rather than from any special circumstances, it is sufficiently "self-evident" that we require "no evidence outside the administrative record."

But the court went on to rule against the airlines on the merits. In short, the court said that the statute, which sets the security fee at "$5.60 per one-way trip in air transportation or intrastate air transportation that originates at an airport in the United States," allows TSA to collect the fee for travel that begins abroad and connects in the United States (for example, from Paris to New York with a connection to Chicago).

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson announced that the government would comply with the temporary injunction issued late yesterday by Judge Andrew S. Hanen (S.D. Tex.) halting implementation of the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, program. But the government will appeal.

There's no shortage of opinion on standing in King v. Burwell, the case testing whether the IRS had authority under the Affordable Care Act to grant tax credits to purchasers of health insurance through a federally-facilitated (not state-run) exchange. The Wall Street Journal and Mother Jones wrote about the standing problems first, but now there's coverage all around the internet.

Still, neither the government nor the Court has said anything about it.

The Court can consider the plaintiffs' standing anytime, and on its own motion. If it rules that the plaintiffs in this case lack standing, surely there will be efforts to find new plaintiffs.

But remember: The parallel case in the D.C. Circuit--which first came down the same day as King--is still in abeyance pending the outcome of King. If the Court dismisses King for lack of standing, the D.C. Circuit would likely lift its case out of abeyance and put the issue back before the Supreme Court relatively quickly (or at least quicker than ACA opponents could scrounge up new plaintiffs and start all over).

The Nebraska Supreme Court today upheld the state law delegating authority to the governor to approve the Keystone pipeline and to use eminent domain to access land along the pipeline route. The ruling does not affect fight in Washington, however, where today the House passed a bill to approve the pipeline, and where President Obama promised to veto it.

The Nebraska case arose out of a Nebraska law that delegated to the governor the power to approve the pipeline. (The former governor did so.) Taxpayers sued, arguing that the law violated the state constitution.

Four (of seven) judges agreed. They said that the law violated a state constitutional provision that reserves to the Public Service Commission this kind of decision. That provision says,

There shall be a Public Service Commission . . . . The powers and duties of such commission shall include the regulation of rates, service and general control of common carriers as the Legislature may provide by law. But, in the absence of specific legislation, the commission shall exercise the powers and perform the duties enumerated in this provision.

The four judges wrote that "we have held that the PSC has 'independent legislative, judicial, and executive or administrative powers' over common carriers, which powers are plenary and self-executing." Moreover, "specific legislation" means "specific restrictions," not "general legislation to divest the PSC of its jurisdiction and transfer its powers to another governmental entity besides the legislature." Thus the legislative delegation over Keystone to the governor improperly intruded upon the power of the PSC under the state constitution.

But under another state constitutional provision, four judges aren't enough to rule a law unconstitutional. The state constitution requires a super-majority of five (of seven) judges to rule a law unconstitutional. So even though a majority held the delegation unconstitutional, it's not. That means the law stays in place, the delegation is good, and the governor's action approving Keystone is untouched.

Before ruling on the merits, the court also ruled on taxpayer standing. The same four judges that argued that the delegation was unconstitutional also held that taxpayers had standing. (The other three argued that there was no standing, and that the standing decision also required a super-majority.) The court invoked its "great public concern" exception to the general rule against taxpayer standing. Under that exception, the court can take up a taxpayer case when it involves an issue of "the Legislature's obedience to the fundamental distribution of power in this state": "when a taxpayer claims that the Legislature enacted a Law that undermines the fundamental limitations on government powers under the Nebraska Constitution, this court has full power and the responsibility to address the public rights raised by a challenge to that act." The "great public concern" exception gives the Nebraska courts more leeway in taking up taxpayer cases than the Supreme Court's standing rules under Article III.

In its opinion in Vivid Entertainment v. Fielding, a panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district judge's denial of a preliminary injunction to Los Angeles Measure B, passed by voter initiative in 2012.

The central issue in the case was the so-called "condom mandate" that requires performers to use condoms during "any acts of vaginal or anal sexual intercourse." The opinion, authored by Judge Susan Gruber, and joined by Judge Alex Kozinksi and sitting by designation Judge Jack Zouhary), agreed with the district judge that the First Amendment challenge to the mandate was subject to intermediate scrutiny. The Ninth Circuit relied in large part on the "secondary effects" doctrine, finding that

The purpose of Measure B is twofold: (1) to decrease the spread of sexually transmitted infections among performers within the adult film industry, (2) thereby stemming the transmission of sexually transmitted infections to the general population among whom the performers dwell.

The court rejected the argument that strict scrutiny should apply nevertheless because Measure B was a "complete ban" on the protected expression, which plaintiffs would define as "condomless sex" ("condomless sex differs from sex generally because condoms remind the audience about real-world concerns such as pregnancy and disease . . . films depicting condomless sex convey a particular message about sex in a world without those risks). Citing Spence v. Washington (1974), the Ninth Circuit concluded that "whatever unique message Plaintiffs might intend to convey by depicting condomless sex, it is unlikely that viewers of adult films will understand that message." Moreover, in an interesting footnote (6), the Ninth Circuit distinguished between the expression and the conduct:

On its face, Measure B does not ban expression; it does not prohibit the depiction of condomless sex, but rather limits only the way the film is produced.

(emphasis in original). The panel opinion also discussed - - - and rejected - - - the arguments that Measure B was not sufficiently "narrowly tailored" in the intermediate scrutiny test because there was a voluntary testing and monitoring cheme for sexually transmitted diseases and that Measure B would be "ineffective" because producers could simply move beyond county lines.

The district judge did, however, find that certain portions of Measure B did not survive the constitutional challenge. On appeal, the plaintiffs argued that Measure B was not subject to severance. The Ninth Circuit panel rejected the severance argument, but helpfully included as an appendix to its opinion a "line-edited version" of Measure B.

Finally, the Ninth Circuit panel rejected the argument that the appellate court did not have Article III power to hear the appeal because the intervenors - - - including a Campaign Committee Yes on Measure B - - - lacked Article III standing. The panel distinguished Hollingsworth v. Perry (the Prop 8 case), noting that here it was not the intervenors that sought to appeal but the plaintiffs themselves who had invoked the court's power.

Reversing the district judge, a unanimous panel of the First Circuit held that a billboard company had standing to challenge the Massachusetts regulatory scheme in Van Wagner Boston LLC v. Davey.The opinion, authored by Judge Bruce Selya who is known for his ambitious language, concludes that

the complaint plausibly alleges that the plaintiffs are subject to a regulatory permitting scheme that grants an official unbridled discretion over the licensing of their expressive conduct and poses a real and substantial threat of censorship. No more is exigible to give the plaintiffs standing to proceed with their challenge.

The First Circuit largely relied on City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., 486 U.S. 750 (1988) in which the Court held unconstitutional a municipal scheme giving the mayor the power to grant or deny applications for annual permits to publishers to place their newsracks on public property; the Court allowed the publishers to proceed with the facial challenge although they had not yet applied for a permit. The First Circuit thus rejected Massachusetts' claim that the company could not show injury in fact because the company "had applied for over seventy permits without having a single application denied." For the court, it was "too optimistic" to think that the "censorship risks are only theoretical." Instead, it noted that the company "is a large, repeat player in the world of outdoor advertising" and "it may plausibly fear incurring the Director's ire any time an existing or potential client seeks to display what might be deemed a controversial message."

The First Circuit also rejected Massachusetts' argument that the "case implicates strictly commercial speech" and thus a lesser standard should apply:

The factual premise of the Commonwealth's thesis is simply wrong. It confuses a recognized category of First Amendment analysis — commercial speech simpliciter — with something quite different: those who have a commercial interest in protected expression.

The court ends its opinion with the statement that it expresses "no opinion on the merits of Van Wagner's First Amendment claim."

To say more about standing would be supererogatory. The short of it is that Van Wagner has plausibly alleged that it is subject to a regulatory permitting scheme that chills protected expression by granting a state official unbridled discretion over the licensing of its expressive conduct. It follows — as night follows day — that Van Wagner has standing to mount a facial challenge to that regulatory permitting scheme.

The court mentioned but stated it was not considering Massachusetts' argument that the scheme's numerous factors howed that the discretion was not unbridled but properly cabined. The district judge will now be taking up this very question under First Amendment doctrine.

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

The Third Circuit has upheld the constitutionality of New Jersey A3371 banning "sexual orientation change efforts" (SOCE), also known as sexual conversion therapy, on minors in its unanimous 74 page opinion in King v. Christie, Governor of New Jersey.

consider a sophomore psychology major who tells a fellow student that he can reduce same- sex attractions by avoiding effeminate behaviors and developing a closer relationship with his father. Surely this advice is not “conduct” merely because it seeks to apply “principles” the sophomore recently learned in a behavioral psychology course. Yet it would be strange indeed to conclude that the same words, spoken with the same intent, somehow become “conduct” when the speaker is a licensed counselor.” . . . . As another example, a law student who tries to convince her friend to change his political orientation is assuredly “speaking” for purposes of the First Amendment, even if she uses particular rhetorical “methods” in the process.

Yet, the court concludes that although such utterances are speech, they are not "fully protected by the First Amendment" because they occur in a professional context. In speech that occurs pursuant to the practice of a licensed profession - - - including fortune-tellers, a case on which the court relies - - - the speech is entitled to less protection.

Precisely, it is entitled to the same level of protection as commercial speech, although importantly the Third Circuit is careful not to hold that this professional speech is commercial speech. In applying the intermediate scrutiny type standard derived from commercial speech, the court finds that the statute "directly advances” the government’s interest in protecting clients from ineffective and/or harmful professional services, and is “not more extensive than necessary to serve that interest.”

The court's distinction between professional and nonprofessional speech, however, may suffer from the same lack of bright lines that it finds with the conduct/speech distinction. The court stresses that professional speech occurs in the context of "personalized services to client based on the professional's expert knowledge and judgement." But in rejecting an argument that the New Jersey statute makes a viewpoint distinction, the court states that the statute

allows Plaintiffs to express this viewpoint, in the form of their personal opinion, to anyone they please, including their minor clients. What A3371 prevents Plaintiffs from doing is expressing this viewpoint in a very specific way—by actually rendering the professional services that they believe to be effective and beneficial.

The Third Circuit's opinion also considered the challenge that the statute was vague and overbroad, noting that the Plaintiffs themselves claim to specialize in the very practice they argue is not sufficiently defined. Similarly, the Third Circuit rejected the Free Exercise Clause claim, affirmed the district judge's conclusion on lack of standing to raise the claims of the minor clients (with some disagreement as to reasoning), and also affirmed on the intervention of an organization.

However, it is the free speech claim that it is the center of this controversy, with the Third Circuit carving out a "professional speech" category, in a disagreement with the Ninth Circuit (and on similar issues with other circuits as it notes), but clearly upholding the statute.

In its split opinion in Sierra Club v. Jewell, a panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a coalition of groups have standing to challenge the revocation of listing on the National register of Historic Places for Blair Mountain Battlefield in West Virginia.

As the first paragraph of the opinion by Judge Srinivasan reminds us:

The Battle of Blair Mountain is the largest armed labor conflict in our nation’s history. In late August 1921, after years of tension between coal miners and coal companies, more than 5,000 West Virginia coal miners began a march to Logan and Mingo Counties, West Virginia. They aimed to unionize and liberate fellow miners living under martial law. When they reached Blair Mountain, a 1,600-acre area in Logan County, they encountered roughly 3,000 armed men. Those men, mostly hired by coal companies, manned a ten-mile defensive line across Spruce Fork Ridge, including Blair Mountain. They dug trenches, mounted machine guns, and dropped homemade bombs. The miners responded with gunfire of their own. The Battle endured for several days, causing numerous casualties. President Harding sent federal troops to quell the fighting, and the coal miners surrendered.

In this case, the battle again features coal companies, but on the other side are environmental and historic preservation groups. The registration of the Battlefield on the National Register, which would arguably prevent surface mining, was hard-fought. One criteria is that a majority of property owners not object, but after the Battlefield was listed, "a number of objections" from a "law firm representing several coal companies" were determined not to have been counted, and the Battlefield was delisted. It is this delisting that is being challenged.

The district judge found that the challengers did not satisfy any of the classic elements of standing. On appeal, the majority of the panel found that the challengers satisfied all three.

Probably most controversial is the initial requirement of "injury in fact" that is both "concrete and particularized" and "imminent." The panel rejected the coal companies amicus argument that the challengers cannot suffer an injury in fact because they possess no "legal right to enter the Battlefield area." It is this absence of "legal right" that Senior Judge Sentelle, dissenting, rests his disagreement. For the majority, however, the challengers could enjoy and observe the land from surrounding areas, including public roads: "there is no reason that the cognizability of aesthetic and associated interests in a particular site could turn on owning a legal right to enter or view the property." Thus, their injury was sufficiently concrete and particularized. As to the imminence of injury, while the district judge had stressed the non-use of the existing mining permits for the past decade, the appellate panel noted that in a letter objecting to the registration of the Battlefield, the coal companies stated that they had an "expectation of developing" the coal in the site.

More complicated are the questions of causation and redressibility, "two sides of the causation coin," because they involve the interplay of the federal registration requirements and West Virginia law, and specific issues regarding the initial approval of mining permits as opposed to permit renewals. The panel stated that the challengers must only show that their argument is "non-frivolous" and not convince the court that their interpretation on the merits is correct, in order to satisfy the standing causation and redressibility requirements.

Thus, the battle of Blair Mountain will be proceeding to yet another round.

The House of Representatives voted along party lines this afternoon to authorize a federal lawsuit against President Obama for alleged constitutional overreach in implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

The complications are caused in part by the procedural posture of the case. For the majority opinion, authored Judge Carlos Lucero, and joined by Judge Jerome Holmes (as was Herbert v. Kitchen), the major issue was the standing of the plaintiffs, specifically on the "redressability" prong of standing. Recall that Oklahoma has both a constitutional amendment and a statute limiting marriage to "a man and a woman" and that the Oklahoma constitutional amendment not only prohibits same-sex marriage but prohibits its recognition even if valid in another state.

The plaintiffs, in a lawsuit filed in 2004 soon after the state constitutional amendment was adopted, challenged only the state constitutional amendment but not the statute.

Affirming the district judge, the Tenth Circuit held plaintiffs nevertheless had standing because "the statutory prohibitions are subsumed in the challenged constitutional provision, an injunction against the latter’s enforcement will redress the claimed injury." However, again affirming the district judge, the plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the "recognition" portion of the constitutional amendment because the defendant - - - the clerk of court - - - could not redress the non-recognition injury.

This problem as to the non-recognition of marriage claim is further complicated by the fact that the Tenth Circuit, in considering a dismissal of the Governor and Attorney General as defendants who could redress the injury stated - - - or seemed to state? - - - that the Clerk of the Court was the correct defendant. Thus, under a "law of the case" argument, the courts should be bound by that determination. The Tenth Circuit panel decided it was not bound, in part because of the "new evidence" of an affidavit by the Court Clerk describing her duties. It also rejected a nonseverability of the recognition and nonrecognition portions of the provision, finding that because it had not been made earlier it was waived.

As to the merits, the majority held that it was governed by its ruling in Kitchen v. Herbert, although facts and arguments differed "in some respects," the "core holdings are not affected by those differences." The panel majority did discuss two additional arguments: a Baker v. Nelson argument that lower courts were not free to consider doctrinal developments and the addition of a government interest that "children have an interest in being raised by their biological parents."

Judge Holmes concurred separately to discuss why "animus" was not an appropriate analysis. Judge Holmes notes that the district judge "wisely" did not rely on animus, and that most of the other decisions invalidating same-sex marriage laws have "exercised the same forebearance." But, he noted, several other district judges have relied on animus, citing Baskin v. Bogan, Henry v. Himes,DeLeon v. Perry, and Obergefell v. Wymyslo - - - interestingly none of which are in the Tenth Circuit - - - and he used the concurrence to endeavor "to clarify the relationship between animus doctrine and same-sex marriage laws and to explain why the district court made the correct decision in declining to rely upon the animus doctrine."

In his relatively brief partially dissenting opinion, Judge Paul Kelly contended that there was no standing to challenge the constitutional amendment absent a challenge to the statute and would not reach the merits. However, he also disagreed on the merits, as he did in the panel's decision in Kitchen v. Herbert. For Judge Kelly, as he phrases it here:

Removing gender complementarity from the historical definition of marriage is simply contrary to the careful analysis prescribed by the Supreme Court when it comes to substantive due process. Absent a fundamental right, traditional rational basis equal protection principles should apply, and apparently as a majority of this panel believes, the Plaintiffs cannot prevail on that basis. Thus, any change in the definition of marriage rightly belongs to the people of Oklahoma, not a federal court.

This will be the heart of the matter when - - - rather than if - - - these cases reach the United States Supreme Court. For now, however, the Tenth Circuit stayed its "mandate pending the disposition of any subsequently-filed petition for writ of certiorari."

By a divided opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin,a panel of the Fifth Circuit has held that the university met its burden of demonstrating the narrowing tailoring necessary to satisfy strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.

Recall that more than a year ago, the United States Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit's finding in favor of the University (affirming the district judge). The Court remanded the case for a "further judicial determination that the admissions process meets strict scrutiny in its implementation." The opinion, authored by Justice Kennedy - - - with only Justice Ginsburg dissenting and Justice Kagan recused - - -specified that the "University must prove that the means chosen by the University to attain diversity are narrowly tailored to that goal" of diversity and the University should receive no judicial deference on that point.

Today's Fifth Circuit panel decision, authored by Judge Patrick Higginbotham, and joined by Judge Carolyn Dinen King, first decided that it would consider the case. The panel rejected the standing arguments, including the fact that Abigail Fisher graduated from another university in 2012, because the "actions of the Supreme Court do not allow our reconsideration" of the standing issue. In other words, the Court knew about the standing issues when it remanded the case in June 2013. The panel also carefully considered the Court's remand language: "The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.” Fisher argued that the Court required the Fifth Circuit to perform the reconsideration, while the University of Texas argued that the matter should be remanded to the district judge. On this issue, the Fifth Circuit sided with Fisher, holding that because "there are no new issues of fact that need be resolved, nor is there any identified need for additional discovery; that the record is sufficiently developed; and that the found error is common to both this Court and the district court," a remand to the district judge "would likely result in duplication of effort."

The panel majority's opinion then discussed in detail the University of Texas at Austin's admissions policies and efforts. It noted:

“Narrow tailoring does not require exhaustion of every race neutral alternative,” but rather “serious, good faith consideration of workable race- neutral alternatives that will achieve the diversity the university seeks.” Put simply, this record shows that UT Austin implemented every race-neutral effort that its detractors now insist must be exhausted prior to adopting a race- conscious admissions program—in addition to an automatic admissions plan not required under Grutter that admits over 80% of the student body with no facial use of race at all.

Nevertheless, the panel recognized that this "automatic admissions plan" - - - the Top Ten Percent plan - - - achieves diversity because of the segregation of Texas' high schools. Under the "holistic view" of Grutter for the remaining 20%, absent a consideration of race, the selection would not be racially diverse.

appendix 2 in the opinion

Concluding its 40 page opinion, the panel wrote:

In sum, it is suggested that while holistic review may be a necessary and ameliorating complement to the Top Ten Percent Plan, UT Austin has not shown that its holistic review need include any reference to race, this because the Plan produces sufficient numbers of minorities for critical mass. This contention views minorities as a group, abjuring the focus upon individuals— each person’s unique potential. Race is relevant to minority and non-minority, notably when candidates have flourished as a minority in their school— whether they are white or black. Grutter reaffirmed that “[j]ust as growing up in a particular region or having particular professional experiences is likely to affect an individual’s views, so too is one’s own, unique experience of being a racial minority in a society, like our own, in which race still matters.” We are persuaded that to deny UT Austin its limited use of race in its search for holistic diversity would hobble the richness of the educational experience in contradiction of the plain teachings of Bakke and Grutter. The need for such skill sets to complement the draws from majority-white and majority-minority schools flows directly from an understanding of what the Court has made plain diversity is not. To conclude otherwise is to narrow its focus to a tally of skin colors produced in defiance of Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the Court which eschewed the narrow metric of numbers and turned the focus upon individuals. This powerful charge does not deny the relevance of race. We find force in the argument that race here is a necessary part, albeit one of many parts, of the decisional matrix where being white in a minority-majority school can set one apart just as being a minority in a majority-white school—not a proffer of societal discrimination in justification for use of race, but a search for students with a range of skills, experiences, and performances—one that will be impaired by turning a blind eye to the differing opportunities offered by the schools from whence they came.

.... the backdrop of our efforts here includes the reality that accepting as permissible policies whose purpose is to achieve a desired racial effect taxes the line between quotas and holistic use of race towards a critical mass. We have hewed this line here, persuaded by UT Austin from this record of its necessary use of race in a holistic process and the want of workable alternatives that would not require even greater use of race, faithful to the content given to it by the Supreme Court. To reject the UT Austin plan is to confound developing principles of neutral affirmative action, looking away from Bakke and Grutter, leaving them in uniform but without command—due only a courtesy salute in passing.

Dissenting, Judge Emilio Garza essentially contended that the majority was giving deference to the University. He noted that it is not impossible "for a public university to define its diversity ends adequately for a court to verify narrow tailoring with the requisite exacting scrutiny," even with the use of "critical mass." But he somewhat confusing stressed that

What matters now, after Fisher, is that a state actor’s diversity goals must be sufficiently clear and definite such that a reviewing court can assess, without deference, whether its particular use of racial classifications is necessary and narrowly tailored to those goals.

Yet what will matter now is whether this panel will have the last say. The Fifth Circuit could grant en banc review or the United States Supreme Court will grant certiorari and take yet another look at affirmative action.

Will also explores a problem for those who'd like to stop presidential overreach in court: they don't have standing. That's because President Obama's actions have generally helped people, not harmed them, leaving only certain taxpayers and frustrated legislators to complain. As Will points out, David Rivkin and Elizabeth Price Foley floated a theory earlier this year in Politico that would allow legislators to sue. And the House recently passed Rep. Gowdy's cleverly named ENFORCE the Law Act of 2014 ("Executive Needs to Faithfully Observe and Respect Congressional Enactments"), authorizing House or Senate lawsuits against the president to require enforcement of the law. That bill will surely die in the Senate. But Rivkin and Foley's arguments for standing don't depend on legislation.

Heretofore in our national history, the President's failure to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," could only be brought before a judicial tribunal by someone whose concrete interests were harmed by that alleged failure. Justice Alito would create a system in which Congress can hale the Executive before the courts not only to vindicate its own institutional powers to act, but to correct a perceived inadequacy in the execution of its laws. This system would lay to rest Tocqueville's priase of our judicial system as one which "intimately binds the case made for the law with the case made for one man," one in which legislation is "no longer exposed to the daily aggression of the parties," and in which "the political question that the judge must resolve is linked to the interest of private litigants."

That would be replaced by a system in which Congress and the Executive can pop immediately into court, in their institutional capacity, whenever the President refuses to implement a statute he believes to be unconstitutional, and whenever he implements a law in a manner that is not to Congress's liking. . . .

If majorities in both Houses of Congress care enough about the matter, they have available innumerable ways to compel executive action without a lawsuit--from refusing to confirm Presidential appointees to the elimination of funding.

The Court's unanimous opinion in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, a challenge to an Ohio election law prohibiting false statements, reversed the Sixth Circuit's determination that the case was not ripe. Recall that Driehaus had filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission about an advertisement from Susan B. Anthony List, but the Sixth Circuit held the SB List could not show "an imminent threat of prosecution at the hands of any defendant" and thus could not "show a likelihood of harm to establish that its challenge is ripe for review."

As we discussed after oral argument, the Justices seemed inclined to find the courts had Article III power to hear the case, although there was some doctrinal fuzziness whether the case should be analyzed as one of "standing" or one of "ripeness." Footnote 5 of the opinion by Justice Thomas for the Court resolves the question firmly in favor of standing:

The Court reiterated the established criteria: (1) an "injury in fact" (2) a sufficient “causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of,” and (3) a likelihood that the injury “will be redressed by a favorable decision," noting that the hurdle for the organization of Susan B. Anthony List was the "injury in fact" requirement. To establish "injury in fact," the organization had to demonstrate the threat of future prosecution by the election board was sufficiently "concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent, not ‘conjectural’ or ‘hypothetical,’” and "certainly impending,” or there is a “‘substantial risk’ that the harm will occur.”

The shadow of the First Amendment was apparent in the Court's reasoning: "The burdens that [Election] Commission proceedings can impose on electoral speech are of particular concern here."

The Court's relatively short and unanimous opinion breaks no new ground. It draws on establishing standing precedent which it applies in a relatively straightforward manner, and then quickly dispatches the "prudential" rationale for rejecting jurisdiction.

However, it's worth considering as a contrast a case uncited by the Court - - - Los Angeles v. Lyons(1983) - - - in which a deeply divided Court decided that Adolph Lyons did not have standing to challenge the City of Los Angeles police department's sometimes fatal practice of administering a "chokehold" to persons it stopped for traffic violations. As Justice Marshall wrote in the dissenting opinion (joined by Justices Brennan, Blackmun, and Stevens):

Since no one can show that he will be choked in the future, no one — not even a person who, like Lyons, has almost been choked to death — has standing to challenge the continuation of the policy. The city is free to continue the policy indefinitely as long as it is willing to pay damages for the injuries and deaths that result. I dissent from this unprecedented and unwarranted approach to standing.

Perhaps Susan B. Anthony List demonstrates that Justice Marshall's view has proven to be correct and that Lyons can now be disregarded. Or perhaps, studies such as this and this are correct that the status of Susan B. Anthony List as an anti-abortion organization and the status of Adolph Lyons as an African-America male confronting law enforcement are just as important as doctrine.

Without dissent or opinion, the United States Supreme Court denied the application of stay in National Organization for Marriage v. Geiger. The application was made to Justice Kennedy (as Circuit Justice) and "by him referred to the Court."

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) was not a party to the orginal case, Geiger v. Kitzhaber in which Oregon District Judge Michael McShane declared unconstitutional the state’s same-sex marriage prohibition in Article 15 of the state constitution, as we discussed here.

Recall that Oregon conceded that the state law was unconstitutional; hence the application by NOM. However, while Judge McShane did not analyze defendant standing or Article III "case and controversy" in Geiger, NOM's application for a stay in Geiger raises even more serious Article III issues after Hollingsworth v. Perry.

The Court heard oral arguments today in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, a challenge to an Ohio election law prohibiting false statements. As we explained when the Court granted certiorari in January, the case centers Article III. The Sixth Circuit determined that the case was not ripe because although Driehaus had filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission about an advertisement from Susan B. Anthony List because it could not show "an imminent threat of prosecution at the hands of any defendant" and thus could not "show a likelihood of harm to establish that its challenge is ripe for review." It could also not show its speech was chilled; indeed representatives from the organization stated they would double-down.

This is not to say that the First Amendment was entirely absent from today's arguments. Arguing for Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion organization, Michael Carvin referred to the Ohio Election Commission as a "ministry of truth," a characterization later echoed by Justice Scalia. During Eric Murphy’s argument, on behalf of the State of Ohio, there were references to United States v. Alvarezin which the Court found the “Stolen Valor” statute unconstitutional, with Justice Alito (who first mentioned the case) as well as Justices Scalia and Sotomayor participating in that discussion.

But Article III concerns, the subject of the grant of certiorari, dominated. But which Article III concerns specifically? As Justice Ginsburg asked: "Do you think this is a matter of standing or ripeness?" Michael Carvin's reply deflects the doctrinal distinctions and seeks to go to the heart of his argument:

In all candor, Justice Ginsburg, I can't figure out the difference between standing and ripeness in this context. No question that we are being subject to something. I think the question is whether or not the threat is sufficiently immediate.

Analogies abounded. Justice Sotomayor asked why the injury in this case wasn't as "speculative" as in Clapper v. Amnesty International USA decided in early 2013 in which the Court denied standing to Amnesty International to challege domestic surveillance under FISA? On the other hand, the challengers in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project did have standing, based on a credible threat of prosecution" based upon 150 prior prosecutions. But, as the Deputy Solicitor General noted in answer to a query from Chief Justice Roberts and quoting from Ohio's brief, under the Ohio statute between 2001 and 2010 there were "a little bit over 500" proceedings based on the state false statements law.

The context of an election was discussed at several junctures. Another election cycle is approaching and election cycles themselves are short periods of intense action and when they conclude the issues can be moot.

Despite the references to Younger v. Harris, federalism was more anemic than robust. The notion that the state supreme court should be given an opportunity to construe the false statement law provoked laughter, with Chief Justice Roberts remark "Well, that will speed things up" as a catalyst.

If the oral argument is any indication, it seems that the federal courts will have a chance to consider the merits of the First Amendment challenge to the Ohio statute.

The D.C. Circuit ruled today in Communities for a Better Environment v. EPA that a group of environmental organizations lacked standing to sue the EPA for its failure to regulate carbon monoxide based on its impact on "public welfare" under the Clearn Air Act. In short, the court ruled that the plaintiffs couldn't demonstrate that the EPA's failure to issue secondary standards for carbon monoxide caused the effects of global warming that the plaintiffs complained about.

The ruling contrasts with Massachusetts v. EPA, where the Supreme Court ruled that a state had standing to challenge the EPA's denial of a petition asking the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide. The Court said that the state sufficiently demonstrated that it stood to suffer harms resulting from global warming (like loss of coastline from rising sea levels) if the EPA did not regulate carbon dioxide.

This case involved a different kind of regulation and a different air pollutant, but the same core theory of standing. The Clean Air Act directs the EPA to set secondary standards for one of six air pollutants (including carbon monoxide) at a level "requisite to protect the public welfare." The "public welfare" includes welfare of animals, the environment, and climate, among other things. (The Act also requires the EPA to set primary standards for the six air pollutants at a level "requisite to protect the public health," that is, human health.) The EPA decided in 2011 not to issue secondary standards for carbon monoxide, because the Agency determined that secondary standards for carbon monoxide were not needed to protect the public welfare--that standards for carbon monoxide wouldn't protect animals, the environment, or climate. The EPA issue primary standards for carbon monoxide, however.

The plaintiffs sued, challenging (1) the EPA's primary standards for cabon monoxide and (2) the EPA's decision not to set secondary standards.

In response to the government's motion to dismiss on the second claim, the plaintiffs argued that they had standing under Massachusetts v. EPA. The court disagreed, saying that the plaintiffs didn't demonstrate the connection between the EPA's decision not to set standards and the harm they alleged. The court explained:

But even assuming for the sake of argument that Massachusetts v. EPA grants standing for plaintiffs other than States, petitioners here have failed to establish the causation element of standing. Petitioners claim that EPA's decision not to set a secondary standard for carbon monoxide will worsen global warming and in turn displace birds that one of petitioners' members observes for recreational purposes. But petitioners have not presented a sufficient showing that carbon monoxide emissions in the United States--at the level allowed by EPA--will worsen global warming as compared to what would happen if EPA set the secondary standards in accordance with the law as petitioners see it. Moreover, citing and analyzing many scientific studies, EPA explained that carbon monoxide's effects on climate change involve "significant uncertainties."

The court also rejected the plaintiffs' claims against the primary standards on the merits.

Derek Muller (Pepperdine) argues over at Jurist.org that the Tenth Circuit dramatically overreached in its recent ruling in Kerr v. Hickenlooper. Recall that the court ruled in that case that a group of state legislator had standing to challenge under the Guaranty Clause the state's Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which requires a popular vote before the legislature can raise taxes, and that the case did not raise a political question. We posted here.

Muller says that court's conclusions on both standing and political question are out of step with longstanding Supreme Court jurisprudence and, if upheld, would result in "extraordinary consequences":

It would create many more opportunities for individual legislators in each state--and perhaps those in both houses of Congress--to sue on generalized grounds of political disempowerment, or even compel the executive to act pursuant to legislative demands. Such would bring about serious judicial inquiries into the validity of the initiative and referendum processes themselves--which has been a large part of most states' governance for the past hundred years. Moreover, it would focus judicial scrutiny on the manner in which each state governs themselves--effectively ushering in a power shift away from the people--and their ability to enact policy objectives via popular vote--and towards the federal court system.

The Tenth Circuit remanded the case, and the district court is preparing for trial. We'll surely see this one again.